When Lalnunpuia, who lives in Damdiai village in the Mamit
district of Mizoram, heard about a mass search operation being organised
by the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (Mizo Student Association), he sent his wife
and four children away to Assam. He was afraid a crisis was looming;
that, like in 1997 and 2009, thousands of Bru tribals would be forced to
flee their homes in Mizoram.

“Many people began leaving in early January when tensions started
to escalate. The women and children were sent away. Only the men stayed
back,” said Lalnunpuia, a former militant with the Bru National
Liberation Front (BNLF). Lalnunpuia’s story is a common one among
Mizoram’s Brus, a people who have been in conflict with the majority
Mizos and who, in the last 17 years, have lost their homes, lands, and
even the hope of a brighter future for their young.

The latest incident
The latest episode in the ongoing conflict came last November, two days before the Mizoram assembly elections,
when Bru militants allegedly belonging to the Bru Democratic Front of
Mizoram (BDFM) and helped by members of the National Liberation Front of
Tripura (NLFT) abducted three young men. On November 23, Sanglianthanga
(27), a Mizo, was driving telecom executive Deep Mondal (25) back to
Mamit from Tuipuibari, a Bru village inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve in
western Mizoram, near the Bangladesh border. After spending the night in
the remote village, which is around 80 kms from Mamit, the nearest
town, the two men had started back early in the morning. Somewhere
between Tuipuibari and Damparengpui, another Bru village inside the
dense forest, armed men forced the duo out of their vehicle. They also
abducted Lalziamlana, another Mizo driver, on the same stretch of
seasonal road that winds through the forest.

Conflict reignited
The
incident reignited the long-standing conflict between the Mizos and the
minority Brus — one that has been smouldering for the last 17 years.
Enraged by the abduction of the Mizos, several protests spearheaded
mostly by the powerful NGOs MZP and the Young Mizo Association (YMA)
were organised throughout the state. The MZP and the state’s taxi
drivers and the pickup drivers associations also started a remna kawngzawh or peace march from Aizawl to Tuipuibari demanding the release of the three men.
On December 6, the militants demanded a ransom of ` 50 million from
the telecom company for which Mondal, a Bengali, works. No ransom demand
was made for the Mizo men. Fearing retributive violence and a repeat of
the bloody ethnic clashes of 1997 that displaced thousands, over 4000
Brus then fled to neighbouring Assam and Tripura. The incident, like
many others in the northeast, hardly made it to the national media’s
news tickers.

Brus living in Tuipuibari and Damparengpui allege that around 100
young Mizos accompanied by police officials came to the villages
‘enquiring’ about the abducted Mizos. In early January, Mizo NGOs called
for a meeting in Aizawl, the state capital. Subsequently, local village
headmen were threatened with dire consequences if they did not ask the
militants to release the Mizos. “They said there would be bloodshed,”
one of the village leaders said. MZP president C Lalhmachhuana, who met
this reporter at his office in Treasury Square, Aizawl, denies that his
organisation was involved in the mass search operation or in threatening
Bru leaders.Kidnap update
After spending nearly two months in
captivity in the jungles of eastern Bangladesh, the two Mizos were
released on January 21 this year. Two days later, the YMA warned of a
massive search operation if the third captive, Deep Mondal, was not
released immediately. Mondal continues to be held captive.

History of the conflict
In a letter dated
February 10, sent to the National Human Rights Commission, the Home
department of the Mizoram government listed the reasons that led to the
original conflict between the Mizos and the Brus. According to the
document, the Brus — recognised as Reangs as per the Constitution
(Schedule Tribes) Order, 1950 — fled persecution in the erstwhile
Tippera kingdom (now divided between Tripura and Bangladesh) to arrive
in Mizoram in the early 1940s. “Brus have always been outsiders and can
never be a part of the larger Mizo culture,” says Lalmuanpuia Punte, who
was MZP’s president in 1997.
The roots of the current conflict can be traced to 1994, when a
political party called the Bru National Union (BNU) was formed to
promote the tribe’s welfare. In September 1997, at a conference in
Saipuilui village in Mamit district, the BNU adopted a resolution to
demand for an Autonomous District Council (ADC) for Brus in the western
belt of Mizoram. Mizoram is predominantly inhabited by Mizos. Other
tribes in the state include the Hmars, the Lai and the Chakmas, each of
whom have their own ADC. Interestingly, though the Brus are the largest
minority in Mizoram their demand for an ADC went unheeded. “What was
wrong with that demand?” asks Elvis Chorkhy, chairman of the Bru
Coordination Committee that has been working with the government to
repatriate the Brus. “Was it so unconstitutional as to lead to the
physical torture and harassment of the Brus?”Curtailing militancy
Mizoram has always been
projected as an island of peace in the northeast. However, the
establishment of the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) led to growing
militancy in the post-1997 period. In the eight years of its existence,
the BNLF was involved in extortion, abducting several Mizos and killing
security personnel. Things came to a head with the murder of a Mizo
forest official in the Dampa Tiger Reserve. Widespread ethnic violence
followed, with reports of arson, killing and rape by the Mizos. The
brutality forced about 50,000 Brus to flee to Tripura.
The Mizos say the Bru exodus of 1997 can be traced to a ‘circular’
signed by Bruno Msha, who was then the Bru Student Union president and
is currently the general secretary of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’
Forum (MBDPF). Dated March 1998, the ‘circular’ asks all Bru headmen to
evacuate their villages and leave Mizoram because of a possible clash
between Bru militants and Mizoram security personnel. Msha, who denies
signing any such document, claims the story is a Mizo attempt to blame
Bru militants for the exodus.
Each side might apportion blame to the other but ultimately, the
ethnic violence of 1997 pushed many Brus into relief camps in a remote
part of Tripura that borders Mizoram and Bangladesh.
Militancy was finally contained when BNLF’s 195 cadres surrendered in
2005. The laying down of arms came after the Mizoram government —
dominated by Mizos — promised to repatriate Bru refugees. “With security
concerns of our officials and the locals, we couldn’t start the
repatriation process early. We had to wait till the Bru insurgency
ceased,” said Lalbiakzama, joint secretary of the home department
overseeing Bru rehabilitation.
The state government met with more success when they convinced 804
cadres of the breakaway faction Bru Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM)
to surrender. The BDFM still exists but the government refuses to accept
that it is a legitimate body, choosing instead to call its members Bru
goons.

Hurdles to repatriation
Though the state
government acted swiftly to rehabilitate militants who surrendered, the
process to bring back displaced Brus took much longer. The first Road
Map was chalked out only in 2009, four years after the militants kept
their side of the promise. A meeting held in November 2009 to discuss
the implementation of the road map, attended by representatives of MBDPF
and surrendered BNLF and BLFM members was a failure. “The Bru leaders
made impossible demands. They wanted cluster settlement in large Bru
villages with at least 500 households and the settlement of all families
in Mamit district, which the state government couldn’t agree to,” said
Lalbiakzama.
Then, on November 13, three days before the process began, suspected
Bru militants shot dead a 17-year-old Mizo boy from Mamit. A fresh spate
of ethnic attacks ensued in which the Mizos reportedly burnt down
around 500 Bru houses in 11 villages across two districts. Some Bru
villagers say Mizoram police personnel instigated the mob to attack
them. The incident pushed around 5,000 Brus to flee with more than 2,500
taking shelter in Tripura’s camps. MZP and YMA leaders allege that the
Brus burned their own houses to defame the Mizos.
After the derailment of the first repatriation attempt, the Mizoram
government prepared Road Map II to rehabilitate the fresh migrants after
the 2009 incident. A visit by the then home minister P Chidambaram to
the camps in 2010 expedited the process. “I will be coming again to
ensure that all of you return to Mizoram,” he said before leaving.
Things, however, continue to look bleak for over 35,000 people still stuck in the forgotten camps of Tripura.

The delayed homecoming of the Brus
The sleepy
town of Kanchanpur in northern Tripura lies about 45 kms from the
Mizoram border. 17 years ago, thousands of Brus fleeing attacks from
Mizos took refuge here. Many crossed the border on foot. The displaced
Brus put up temporary shelters on the lower tracts of the Jampui hills
that separate Tripura from Mizoram and Bangladesh. Today, there are over
35,000 Internally Displaced Persons languishing in the seven camps
spread over the region. Here, scores live amidst filth and human waste
with small mountain streams being the only source of drinking water.

A report by the Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network says ‘The
ration quota is so inadequate that Brus do not report deaths as it
means a further reduction of the rations’. The abject conditions and the
lack of employment and education have made the camps a good recruiting
ground for militants. Many young Brus have missed out on education and
cannot even get job cards under central government schemes. “This is why
we are asking for a Primitive Group Program and a development council
which will look after the upliftment of the community once it is
repatriated,” says Bruno Msha of the MBDPF.

Adults get a cash dole of Rs. 150 per
month and 600 gms of rice per day while minors get half that amount.
This is much less than other internally displaced groups like the
Kashmiri Pandits and even the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu have
received in the past. Leaders of the MBDPF maintain that unless
compensation is increased, no one will go back. Both the home department
and Mizo organisations, allege that any attempts at repatriation are
foiled by the staging of untoward incidents. The Bru side alleges that
it is a conspiracy by Mizos who don’t want Brus to return. With only
5,627 people rehabilitated until last October, the Mizoram government
has a mammoth task on its hands. “It has become necessary to remove
those camps and resettle the displaced. We are losing precious time and a
generation of kids is losing their future. The process needs to be
expedited,” said Chorkhy.